


at your own pace

by seren0n



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Boundaries, Developing Relationship, Found Family, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Recovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trauma, Trust Issues, absolutely not the main focus but as in everything i make! the team is trans!, lets talk about sex baby!, relationship angst, scout and pyro not included as love interests, social masking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-09-26 07:36:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20386060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seren0n/pseuds/seren0n
Summary: Spy has a lot going on with himself, and he's never been very keen to talk about any of it. Especially not when he's at the center of an elaborate plot to try and help him unwind.The drawbacks of maintaining a persona, Spy being surprised by the news that he's attractive, and the ways that people who really love you will listen to your boundaries and adjust accordingly.





	at your own pace

**Author's Note:**

> so... this one's kinda... different...  
the last year or so's been... a lotta things, and i have multiple projects id love to finish eventually and hopefully post. this is at least part of one of those, and not the only one i have around this premise, and even if i dont actually finish it... i hope it helps somebody how its helped me. consider it my love letter to all the complicated things i rarely see written about, and to all the feelings i or anyone else has ever had about being too broken to be accepted and loved
> 
> tw for overarching themes of sexual discomfort/trauma, depression, body dysmorphia, and (to be safe, this is not the intention) parts that might read as trying to pressure spy into sex. this fic will have absolutely no porn and the rating wont be changing for surprise horny, its purely about processing and healing.  
thanks for reading it <3

Spy considers himself a lot of things.

Working for Mannco, being a spy, tending towards mingling with the rich and aristocratic, he has to be a lot of things. That’s just his job, looking the part of poised, secretive, sharp, striking… they’re things that come naturally to him after so long performing them. If he wasn’t at ease with those attitudes before, he certainly is now, and he’s quite comfortable having integrated them into himself. Even he can hardly spot the seams.

Similarly, there's also the things he wants to be as he settles into older age, finds his footing with his current personality, and still has to put in more regular effort to get. 

Most often, he likes to think of himself as an adventurous sort, likes to exude that air around the people he’s dealing with. It’s the kind of attitude that makes people turn their head, but not expect anything sinister from, intriguing but not enough to draw scrutiny in passing, confident but subtle. Perfect for his job, or he’s sure to make it seem that way at least. He is The Spy after all, the kind of man that’s up for anything interesting and unusual, always pushing the limits of his experiences, intellectual, yes, but the fun kind of intellectual! A real James Bond but in a smooth, palatable way. A man of the world, an active risk-taker, all the right capitalist buzzwords he needs to pass himself off as natural, for others to see affluent potential in him, garbage like that. Just… something _ exciting _. Something respectable.

And certainly, he pulls all of it off quite well, that and more. Mercenary work is eye-catching to have on your resume if nothing else, especially mercenary work like what he does, nevermind it’s not that impressive in reality. Getting to travel to new places just for the sake of killing people is always worth an eyebrow raise at the bare minimum, the secret identities, the masks, everyone’s always dreaming of experiences like this in the ongoing hell of the mundane world. There’s a thousand ways to spin it into something even larger than life, and even more ways to gently drop the hint just enough to make anyone enamoured in vague stories. 

And for this kind of money, it’s quite the attractive deal. It was for him when he took it too, and just having it under his belt is exciting by proxy to most. Really, he doesn’t need anything more than that when it gets him what he’s looking for. He’s very attention-grabbing on those merits alone, the merits he’s built himself up to exude, and always at the right moment.

But…

It doesn’t do it for him. Not… not quite. Not enough.

He’s always one for splitting hairs, bit of a flaw he’s never managed to cut out when it keeps him alive and aloof. His worries are never deal breakers, it’s rare for anyone else to even notice the details like he does, be they manufactured or simply coincidence. But he’s always worrying.

Because, part of that… idea, the image, the stereotype of an adventurous person that he’s always playing off of, it… usually involves something in sex, and being very willing to jump on board with sex, and being _ interesting _ with or about sex, flaunting or winning or just naturally drawing in. 

That gets to be his personal roadblock. His very secret personal roadblock that he absolutely refuses to even slightly hint to anyone, so he has to look the part and be a somewhat sexual person in public, with friends, as a joke, even when he thinks no one cares, whatever and _ whenever _ it gets that image for him. Flirt with a server for a giggle, make the obvious pun before someone else does so they’re always waiting on you, excuse yourself with a less-than-modest hint, muss yourself up just so. Anything it takes, so long as no one notices the cracks.

And, well, he doesn’t have to tell anyone that he never actually leaves the base for some women. He doesn’t have to let anybody know that the most “real” sex he’s had in somewhere around the fifteen year mark has been jerking off in bed by himself, that’s his own business, kept perfectly safe by the assumption that whatever anyone thinks he does will always be too explicit for them to directly ask. Of course if that’s just what he likes then there’s nothing wrong with it, knowing yourself and how to keep yourself happy is very important. 

… But the real draw for him has always been that it’s just him, alone. The only time that it finally stops mattering how ‘adventurous’ you look to other people, is when there aren’t any other people to look. He has his own issues around getting off, like everything, like everyone, but he gets to do it by himself, whenever he wants. He gets to decide everything about it, control how it goes, how he sees himself for it. That’s worth quite a lot to him, and he remains in the top two people on base to never be walked in on with how secretive he is, which is also worth very much to him. 

And it gets harder the longer you do it. Almost everything does. 

Eventually… someone comes along and wants to _ see _ that adventurousness, that affect and that confidence, up close and for real. Eventually, if you look the part well enough, people want to test it, want you to stretch it further for them so they’ll see if you break, if you’ll let them down. People are interested, attracted to the idea, respond a little too well to the flirting or even flirt first, seek you out and proposition you, lean in too close, laugh with too much intention. People become interested by the you that _ you _decided to show them, and they would like to see it in action. 

He only thinks of it that way because he can’t imagine anyone liking the _ real _ him, rarely shows that to people, if such a thing even exists anymore or ever did, if he’s even capable of taking off the mask around other people (because why would anyone like _ that _). 

And yet. People seem to like something about him eventually through the manufacturedness.

He’s been with this team for a good while now, long enough to really get the ins and outs of how they all work together, how they handle themselves, even if he doesn’t feel like he’s very personally involved with their affairs, nor them with his. He knows almost all the team has varying levels of inclination towards men, his son included (not that Scout realizes), and indeed as they’ve all gotten closer with each other over the years some of them happened to get together, Heavy and Medic being the most obvious and quick to bond. 

That’s fine. Proximity to other people in love doesn’t force him to confront anything personal head-on right away, though he’ll often have to dance around it with himself in private during his extended musings. It doesn’t require him to grapple the reality of his own opinions on sex and love, not immediately. It just implies things to you, in a subtle way, about how you might see things internally, and then it gives you a good long head-start of several mental miles between yourself and reality to process that. 

And he does very much love being distanced from reality, never been all that good to him when he was himself, he’d much rather be as far from it as he reasonably can be without turning into an unresponsive vegetable and hold everything at least an arms length away from any hints of who he might be.

So.

When all of this collides together at a sudden alarming rate, one week everything is just as simple as always, keeping his distance and only ever considering the depths of his issues when he’s feeling particularly depressed, and the next he’s being challenged at every turn, someone prodding at his mask and image left and right, everyone asking and _ asking _ … well? Suddenly he _ does _ have to grapple with the genuine effects and implications of his experiences. 

And he really, _ really, _ hates doing that.

Sniper and Medic had been the earliest two to say anything, to no one’s surprise at all. Sniper somehow managed to be both smooth and awkward, told Spy he’s probably even cuter under the balaclava and invited him back to the camper van, while Medic had propositioned as directly as possible with a head on question of if Spy was interested in sex right _ now _ , and then sat on his medical table with his legs _ just _so, and--

Well, Spy excused himself on the spot of course. 

Both times. 

It’s something that took him a lot of practice and very awful experiences, saying no, and he’s not about to forget how necessary and valuable learning that was. Of course it hurts, even when Medic didn’t seem like he took it to heart, simply nodded and went back to business as usual, just the look on Sniper’s face of regretting everything he’d said immediately was enough, and then later when everyone else gradually worked up the courage to say anything, it… 

It hurt. 

It really hurt. 

None of them are… bad, bad in theory, bad looking, bad people. None _ deserve _ being turned down outright. It might be very easy for him to forget that Engineer has the potential to be sexual at all what with his very fatherly energies, and Medic is perhaps the most objectively terrifying person who could ever bring up anything personal in conversation, but Sniper, or Demoman? Heavy? Hell, even Soldier? 

They’re all, ultimately, just other people. They’re all part of this little team of misfits and mess ups that decided to work together and make their own family, they’re finding solace in each other out in the middle of a desert under the guise of a worthless war that no one really cares about winning. They’re all alone except for each other and they’ve spent enough time watching each other’s backs to care about more than just the job. Being a bunch of societal outcasts comes with eccentricities and odd habits and insufferable moments, Spy’s own included, but… it’s sweet that everyone cares. Genuinely.

… Or rather, it’s all nice and fuzzy until he has to remember the sex part of the situation, and then some aspect of his brain decides it would rather physically combust than actually do anything about so many people liking him or trying to know him at once. The coupled ones still like each other at the _ same time _ too, and the continuously sadder part of his brain can’t even _ begin _ to imagine someone liking him just as much as another current partner. Everyone knows Heavy and Medic are nigh inseparable, but they still want to… with _ him _ , he can’t get over it, and Demo and Soldier, and… no, he can’t get over it there either and decides to immediately stop dwelling on that one, but then it’s back to the sex by itself and he can’t do that either, but he can’t even explain _ why _ he _ \-- _

… Well.

He _ can _ explain it, he could, he’d just… rather not. 

He wishes he could say yes, really does. Wishes he could actually live up to their expectations and do what they want, wishes his mask was a little more airtight, stretched just that little bit further. But he can’t, not really, not… safely. He’d never, ever presume anyone on the team wants to hurt him, though he questions if they’re in their right minds to want sex with him in the first place, he knows they have no bad intentions. He might trust them with his life even. Just. Not… that much. 

Not _ sex _much.

~

“Oh-kay, so, operation ‘give Spy a good time’ has been a complete failure?” 

A short round of “aye”s, “yeah”s, and one disappointed groan goes around their little huddled circle, and Heavy sighs deep in his chest. 

“… Is Spy’s business, doktor,” he attempts, another comment in a long line of comforts that he has to pull out again and again as Medic keeps pouting more the longer these meetings go. By the upset disappointment in Medic’s tone, it hasn’t been much help either.

Pulling together a secretive team discussion without alerting Scout or Spy, and even then they couldn’t be sure about Spy, is a disaster waiting to happen. Getting together _ several _ of them over the span of a few months has been a complete nightmare. Most of the time, it took waiting for Spy to announce an off-base vacation or contract, and then carefully ensuring that everyone was partnered with someone sensible and capable of keeping a secret, which is difficult on its own. At the very least, Pyro finding out wasn’t too great an issue, given it’s hard to tell what they want or if they even care about this mess.

And the _ locations _, after this many meetings Heavy would hope they’d have all learned their lesson to not meet in Medic’s very whimsically organized operating room, even if it was helpful to accomodate for Medic’s main stress coping method first. It completely defeated the purpose of everyone circling around the operating table, since Medic was, of course, stressed, and no one else on the team shares the enthusiasm for guts, but no one’s about to challenge him on it either. The uncomfortable waiting room chairs only amplified the low mood, and a few of them, Heavy included, had opted to simply stand instead.

Engineer’s workshop, piles of purposefully stacked scrap and dangerous junk notwithstanding, would’ve made for a better choice than this.

But… here they were nonetheless.

The plan was predominantly Medic’s idea, born out of some complicated mix of concerned and curious, and Medic generally managed to be reasonable about sexual boundaries when he’d had yet to feel out the right way to push, as he often tried to do. But, while he did mean well, he’s also impatient, and a very dead-set sort of man when he wants something, and if he thought what someone needed prescribed was to be shown a good time, then he was going to bend heaven and earth until he did just that. It’s how he cares. 

Heavy is fine with this, to a point, he likes seeing Medic happy and doesn’t have much in this area that upsets him, but as a closed off and private man himself… he does have to wonder about forming an entire committee out of everyone who’d ever had even one sexual thought involving Spy in a collective attempt to get him more “relaxed”.

“I just don’t understand! We all tried different things, _ ja _?” Medic looks around the room, he doesn’t really sound angry, and Heavy knows he isn’t, but the doctor has a strong enough stare that it makes some of the mercenaries shrink automatically and nod more hesitantly. Heavy sighs as quietly as he can.

“Maybe Spy does not like sex,” he tries again, futilely, pinching the bridge of his nose. Almost no one can play mediator for Medic’s energy, even if they want to, which leaves the responsibility to him since, well, Spy’s not here to help do it for them.

“He talks about it too much.” Sniper barely looks up from under his hat even to make his point, he’s been moping in a corner since they started. When asked he’d said it was about scores, but most everyone had decided otherwise. “Maybe he jus’ doesn’t like sex with us.”

Medic scrunches up his face. “Absurd. We’re all perfectly interesting!”

“Some people do not like… _ interesting _, doktor.” 

“But he must like _ something _ interesting,” Medic huffs as he throws his hands up, splatters some blood on Heavy’s vest. One more splotch to the collection. “He is _ Spy _, isn’t he? Should we all ask at the same time?”

“Eh… seems like a bad idea, doc.” Demoman’s among the less bothered people present, likely on par with Heavy himself considering he’s also quite a settled man in his own relationship. He’s had an arm over Soldier’s shoulder for a while, who’s mainly occupied with an assortment of belts, though it’s unclear if the gesture is emotionally or structurally supportive. “If he says no then that’s that, do we really want tae be pushin’ him?”

Pyro nods from their side of the table with something muffled that no one quite catches, the usual, and Engineer hums with a sigh. “I’m goin’ with Demo on this one. If he’s interested he can come find us, yeah?”

“Well… _ ja, _ but he’s so… _ ach! _ ” Medic makes some hard noise of frustration in his throat, a little too similar to hacking up phlegm, and slaps a hand down on the table loud enough for Heavy to wince. “He’s so stuck up, you know this! He hates asking for things! It’s ridiculous, he probably wouldn’t ask even if he _ was _ interested!”

Everyone thinks that over, some more doubtfully than others. Sniper snorts. “He’s a rational adult, he can make his own decisions, can’t he? If he thinks we’re outta his league then he can go bugger himself.”

“Yer ego dunnae cover up that ye’ve been hidin’ in yer van all weekend, Mundy.”

“Shut up,” Sniper grumbles back, pulling his hat down further over his face.

“Slim’s got a point,” Engineer coughs, and even Sniper seems shocked at the defense. “Can lead a horse to water but if the horse is old enough to take himself to rehab, s’not really our business now, is it?” 

Medic waves him off a little too fast. “This has nothing to do with his smoking, even if I have thought about making his brain produce its own nicotine. He needs a good fucking intervention, quite literally, and until I think of a better way to loosen him up he’s just going to keep being so distant and _ mopey _… Ach, I can barely stand it!” 

Heavy continues to eye Medic with concern, and it would be nice if more of them would do the same, but he understands not being sure how to stand up to Medic. He’s very used to doing so, knows how to do it just right so Medic won’t get carried away, and perhaps that’s why he doesn’t mind so much if this idea doesn’t work. He likes the duality of balancing Medic out, of being balanced in turn, and it’s difficult to say what throwing Spy into the mix of everything would lead to.

He is inclined to agree with Medic’s point, despite the repeatedly questionable phrasing, as Spy does often avoid things like assistance or offered teamwork, almost never asks for medical attention even when Medic shares it anyways, and consistently keeps them all away from his personal affairs. The man is allergic to being direct and honest about how he feels, sometimes to ridiculous degrees just so he won’t reveal something seemingly minor, and it doesn’t even always work, the foremost example being his position as Scout’s father. Egotistical and abrasive aspects of Spy aside, he does feel like he holds back more than is good for him, contract or no.

Still though, Heavy can’t help but feel like sex and relationships are another sort of matter entirely, and that one should never rush into either if it can be helped.

“Pushing won’t help,” he says finally, after a good minute of silence with the doctor still accusingly glancing around the room. It gets him the same look for a moment, but Medic seems to gradually deflate as he holds eye contact with that unwavering, indisputable solidness everyone’s always been afraid of him for. For Medic, thankfully, it’s a sobering sort of presence, and he melts into Heavy’s chest with his arms barely encircling Heavy’s middle. 

“I’m just _ worried _about him, Misha… and he’s no good at including himself, you know?”

“_ Da… _Heavy knows. But does not feel like right thing. For us, or him.”

“Listen, doc,” Engineer fidgets with his hard hat in his hands. “We all care ‘bout him too, but if we’re lookin’ to support him… maybe we should try somethin’ else.”

Demo and Pyro both nod in agreement while Sniper remains still under the brim of his hat, paying silent attention. Soldier, though he’s probably listening in his own way, mutters something incomprehensible.

“Well…” Medic starts, seeming a bit defeated, but as Heavy delicately places a large hand on his shoulder and coaxes Medic back to standing on his own, he puffs himself back up to his determined attitude. “Alright. We can try another way then, and be more careful this time. Who has ideas other than mine?”

The room feels warmer, more on board and ready to get to work with an atmosphere not unlike in mission briefings, and for a moment Heavy feels a shift, like things might be moving for the better, for all of them. Maybe, it’s all going to work out in their little family of a team, and they’ll all become so much closer than they ever were before…

The extended silence of everyone trying to think kills the mood too fast, and just like that… they’re back to square one. Heavy sighs a little louder this time.

~

Spy loves coming back to the base at night the most. 

It’s been quite the weekend for him, doing Miss Pauling a favour that involved some questionable assassinations, hiding some equally questionable cases of money, turning over the real money to the company. Exciting, and stressful, but not new. Miss Pauling seems to be upset he didn’t thoroughly dismember the bodies last season and she hasn’t let him bury any since, which is the only thing that’s really changed, and he’s fine with that.

With the genuinely hard part of his job over, and over impressively fast even for him, it was a breeze to park his expensive sports car out in the dust, just so Sniper over in the lot wouldn’t wake up to his return, and to shut the back door of the base with minimal squeaks and banging. Always satisfying when things go smoothly, and he even spends a few precious vulnerable moments getting a little paper cup of water from the lazily-painted office dispenser they have in all on-base kitchens. Something about lead poisoning that he feels very few of the other men take seriously.

While that calm is appreciated, as is the water when it takes hours to drive out here after remotely meaningful contracts and it’s wretchedly hot, he can barely enjoy it before his paranoia of shared spaces begins rearing up in the back of his mind. He is glad to be back, truly, there’s something about working here, completely without consequences or even a consistent sense of reality (sometimes too much for their own good he thinks), that takes the life-threatening edge off and turns killing into a simple game of adrenaline and surprise. It’s comfortable, so long as he has nothing else to do, but…

Well, he’s never quite gotten over the sense that he’s going to be walked in on at any moment, be it on the battlefield or here in the kitchen at night. Demoman once found him sitting at the table in pitch blackness, and he’ll never forget the confused and slightly worried tone when Demo asked if he was alright. 

He’d been dissociating and drinking water, like any normal person, for the record. 

When the sensation is so strong he can’t stand it anymore, he places the cup in the bin with care for the noise and begins his quick and cautious walk to his smoking room, where he can finally get out of this suit and breathe easy. That’s always nice… much as he loves his suits after having lived enough of his life banned from wearing them, there’s also something special to sitting by the fireplace in a fuzzy robe, completely alone. It’s also much nicer to hotbox yourself into oblivion when you’re comfortable in your place of living and not panicking in your car. Ah, the wonderfully self-destructive life he could live again. If only.

He makes it to his door with just the slightest of creaks in the floorboards, he always forgets about one in particular, and he finally, _ finally _ sighs in relief. Home sweet home, gorgeously engraved door and all, how he loves looking expensive. He brushes his fingers over the doorknob, exhausted but still delicate… 

“You’re back early.”

Spy about jumps out of his skin, pulls away from his own door like he’s been burned, and he tries not to stare too wildly at Sniper leaning at the end of the hall. 

He was so sure he’d done it _ perfect _ too, but with the hawk-like way Sniper’s watching him he must be losing his edge, getting too settled in thinking he knows his team’s habits every time. Or, maybe Sniper actually has been camped out there for the last three hours waiting for him to show, that sounds like something he’d do, even if there’s no possible way to know Spy was… 

Oh, but of course. He hates snipers and their fucking guns so much. 

“… My estimated time for completion was over-exaggerated,” he manages, jaw set and expression guarded. It’s a little painful so fast after feeling so assured and certain he’d be free. 

Sniper barely reacts, dead-set in his analyzing stare. He doesn’t even shift, damn him. “Pretty convenient.” 

“As is you cornering me in the hall. Now, do you mind?” Spy’s too tired to express anything better than dry irritation, standing his ground stiff and straight as he can, but at least it doesn’t come out like a whine or something equally immature of him. Their stand-off has all the energies of a challenge, as if Sniper’s about to interrogate him when they’re coworkers for fucks sake. Can a man not be given the decency and space to just go to his own room after a business trip? 

Perhaps it bothers him so much because of how badly he’d wanted to avoid exactly this, and how much he’d love to just shut the door in Sniper’s damned face right now, get a nice long smoke to himself and some rest in his own bed, if he’s lucky. If he’d played things even safer and gone around cloaked he might’ve been able to stay cooped up by himself for a few days before he needed to go back to the job, avoid alerting his whole team that he was back along with any other _ unpleasant _ discussions they might like to have with him. 

It seems this isn’t his night for grand plans like that.

And, instead of taking the very obvious hint in Spy’s tight posture and tighter expression, Sniper presses in with a few casual strides, keeps staring at him. He knows it’s Sniper’s killer stare, the one he has before he takes a shot without the little smirk, and its absence implies he isn’t enjoying this despite appearances. Eye contact is a struggle at the best of times for Spy, it’s too piercing and too searching when he’s in the wrong state of mind, he’s never sure what everyone else sees in him. But he holds it.

… And holds it.

And keeps holding it as Sniper barely blinks, barely moves, as he feels some sweat accumulating on the back of his neck, and finally, Sniper swallows quietly.

“… D-d’you, um. I-I’m sorry.”

He blinks first. 

“… What?” 

It’s the last thing he’d expected to be hearing right now. And just like that, suddenly he wonders if he’s the one staring too harshly now as Sniper seems to evade all understanding yet again.

“For, for y’know. Askin’ bout th-- y’know. I know I’m all… this,” Snipe gestures hesitantly at his whole body. “Me. A-an’ I should’a figured y’wouldn’t be into a bloke like me in the first place, with all my--… yeah.”

Sniper is… visibly uncomfortable now, obviously so, his lack of movement and reaction no longer defensive but resigned, like he’s been grappling with this for days (hell, he probably has), and Spy’s so fucking shocked he’s getting_ apologized to _ for the whole being flirted with business that he almost forgets to _ say something _.

“You… are apologizing.” Oh god no, not like _ that _ , he sounds too spacey and surprised for his own good. _ Something additive, please. _

“Well, I mean yeah? Look-- I just--,” Sniper stammers over himself, has that same self-loathing kind of expression he did when Spy first turned him down, and when he finally clears his throat, Spy feels his worst theories being proven. “It’s… it’s okay-- i-if you hate me, y’know. Can’t blame ‘ya really, and I just… wanted to get things square.”

Well, fuck.

Spy makes a strong effort to keep from looking incredulous, or from staring so blankly Sniper just walks away before he can explain himself and say what he meant, what he _ really _ wishes he could’ve said to everyone honestly, but the words don’t find their way onto his tongue for an unbearable length of time. Even when they finally do it’s only in half sentences, beginnings stuttering out into nothing accompanied by his own grimacing. Sniper doesn’t seem expectant at least, _ Dieu merci _, just… horribly soul-crushed instead. 

He wishes this wasn’t so _ difficult _for him.

“I don’t… hate you,” he eventually forces out, with more frustration than he’d like, and he winces at the unimpressed frown Sniper returns. It sounds hard to believe even out of his own mouth. “Honest.”

“You--” Sniper starts, but doesn’t finish, and quirks his lips instead as he averts his gaze again. “Y’still turned me down.”

“I did not turn you down because I _ hate _ you, I can’t even bring myself to be disgusted with you on a regular basis.” He gestures vaguely into the air, but he’s not sure he’s actually gesturing at anything. He settles on crossing an arm over his torso, just to have a sense of _ something _ between him and Sniper other than the few steps of unoccupied space. “I turned all of you down.”

Sniper doesn’t try to counter, but the solemn look he’s giving in its place is still doubtful, if less openly deprecating. Spy, much as he wishes he could, can’t hold a look in turn. Eventually Sniper forces himself to break the silence, and it is extremely obvious he’s forcing it from the slight crack in his voice.

“…Y’only like girls then?”

Spy grits his teeth and his shoulders sag as he sighs, an _ endearing _ gesture he tells himself, exasperatedly endeared. He’s not angry at the question, it’s an understandable assumption, a safe one, he’s just… he’s so tired of it. He’s tired of using it and having it be assigned to him, even if being perceived as a straight man is still more affirming than nothing. 

He’s just as tired of standing here in the hall, he reminds himself with his aching legs and his fingers twitching at his side, but… he should settle this. Leaving Sniper to make his own assumptions is the safe choice, not the good choice. Not the choice he wants to be making here, and not the choice that Sniper deserves him taking. 

Likewise, for everyone else, but that will have to wait until the sun is up and he’s had some time to himself. 

“I’m… hardly a model heterosexual, no,” he laughs dryly. “I do not only like ‘girls’, I don’t… it’s… it’s complicated_ . _”

“Is nobody your type?” Sniper looks and sounds as lost as Spy feels, and he almost laughs again, because it’s almost true. 

This is stupidly difficult, especially with the curiosity Sniper’s flashing him and how he’s clearly desperate for a simple answer, something more satisfying than the tempting urge to blame yourself for someone else’s actions and mistakes. He’s been there, he’s maybe even been in Sniper’s exact position before, a very long time ago. He doesn’t like to think about it.

“It’s… it’s not like that,” he forces out, slowly, and then has to take a deep breath. “I do _ like _ you Sniper, you’re… you’re appreciable, in your own… sort of way. I’m not trying to judge you personally just because I don’t want to get naked in front of you.”

Sniper blinks like the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind, which might be adorable in another context, another time and place Spy wishes he was in now. “… You like me?”

“You certainly don’t make it easy with how much you sweat.” Spy can’t resist the eyeroll paired with the comment. He’s barely revealing anything and he’s still struggling to get out what he means, when it isn’t even that difficult to explain if he could just… _ explain _ it. He’s expecting too much from himself it seems. “ _ Yes, _ I like you. I may even like you enough, but I can’t just… it is not that simple, _ mon ami. _ I can’t… I cannot just _ have sex _ with all of you.”

“But you’re… you’re _ Spy. _ You’re always talkin’ about sex, flirtin’, makin’ jokes about it…”

The awkward trailing off just bolsters his anxiety, and somewhere he has to find it funny, that both he and Sniper are sitting here, nervous out of their minds over each other. There’s no evidence that he can expect this should be easy, and he’s rapidly realizing his tendency for avoidance might mean a little more than he’d previously assumed. He hates needing to explain himself just for people to respect him properly, he wishes it was a given, wishes he wasn’t cleaning up after his own past mistakes with every question he answers out of obligation. 

He catches himself nearly shuffling his feet, and forces his posture straight again. He’s not the scared twenty year old struggling to figure himself out anymore, and he hasn’t been that person for a long time. He needs to get this one thing in the open, clear this one thing up, and he needs to be the mature person about it. 

If nothing else… he needs his boundaries set, that’s the core of this, the core of everything around this. He inhales, his eyes stinging.

“_ Merde, _ Sniper, I just… I need time. And… space. I cannot do it on a whim even if I would like to, even if I like all of you… I’m sorry I made you question yourself, the way I went about it. I’m not…” He almost chokes on it. Almost. Manages it with only a waver. “I’m not ready. You understand?”

Sniper blinks again, much more owlishly and maybe dazed, but he does nod and relax his shoulders, maybe as if… as if he really does understand. That’s enough, Spy decides, in his desperation to leave. It’s enough for now, it has to be. He’s not sure he could take anything more. 

“… Okay. Yeah, okay. I just… take care of yourself, mate.”

Spy nods back, keeps himself together and holds the bleariness in his vision at bay until Sniper’s awkwardly said a goodnight and slinked out to the back door, out to his van, shuts it so much louder than Spy did when he came in. And then he slinks himself into his room, at last, feels his walls go down and his coiled tight anxiety unwind as the emotions of it hit him in waves. He’s leaning back against his door with his knees up to his chest for a long time, coming down from the haziness, that sort of distant layering effect from being so open, so forward. 

In the safe coziness of his own personal space, somewhere he doesn’t share with his other teammates if he can help it, he can breathe and think, taste that honesty on his tongue and in his stomach. It’s unfamiliar to him, especially now, the idea that he tells people his needs, gives hints about himself, they feel so overwhelmingly large in his head even when they rarely mean anything to anyone else.

The thing that startles him the most is how _ easy _ it was, just saying it and being heard. He’s never… been willing to be honest, when he’s asked why. Something in him feels like maybe, if Sniper had asked…

It’s something that gives him a feeling that he could tell the others, when he feels ready, and like… like they’d actually listen to him. Like they’d _ respect _ him, and he can’t keep from thinking about why that’s so painful a surprise, and so hard to really believe.

His memory’s faulty, especially now in his old age, and he’s not quite sure when he last cried this hard.

**Author's Note:**

> im really not sure how fast ill update or what ill edit/switch around later, but bother me to keep writing on [tumblr](https://proxima-c-entauri.tumblr.com/) lol
> 
> also im literally so sorry to every person who clicked on this hoping for a deep romance moment with anybody that isnt sniper if i stick to this i Swear. they will all get a turn. with a bonus surprise ship hopefully B)


End file.
